Glendale Relay for Life draws hundreds, raises thousands for fight against cancer
Standing under an umbrella and sporting a purple shirt with “Survivor” across the back, Lupe Magallanes can’t help but smile.
She was diagnosed with cervical cancer seven years ago, but thanks to treatment, she is now cancer-free.
“To this day everything’s good,” Magallanes said. “It hasn’t come back.”
The 37-year-old East Los Angeles resident received a medal commemorating her victory, which she also celebrated by walking the “Survivors Lap” during the Relay for Life event in Glendale this past Saturday.
The 24-hour American Cancer Society fundraiser returned to the Scholl Canyon baseball fields at 9 a.m., with nearly 1,000 people participating in teams under a clear October sky. During the relay, members of each team took turns walking around the baseball field, while other team members could take part in a variety activities if they weren’t walking.
The event kicked off with the traditional victory lap for cancer survivors, which this year was led by the Glendale High School Co-ed Dance Team and followed by the school’s cheer squad.
Kelly Palmer, of Glendale, is the director for the dance team, which volunteered their day at the event. Palmer said the team has come out to the Glendale relay event five or six times during her 20 years as director, but the decision to attend this year was personal.
“Our team this year has lost a lot of people,” Palmer said, adding that a godmother of one of her students and the father of another both died of cancer this year. “You never think it’s going to happen to you.”
Another reason Palmer made the relay this year was for her boyfriend, Joscha Ramhorst, who also wore a purple survivor’s shirt on the field during his first relay.
In 2010, three days before Thanksgiving, Ramhorst was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma, a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma that is difficult to treat and seldom cured.
“I started my chemo on Thanksgiving Day,” Ramhorst said.
Ramhorst connected with Palmer through an online dating site while in the hospital undergoing treatment.
Ramhorst said he sent her love poems and other “crazy” things when they were matched, thinking, “I got nothing to lose.”
“He didn’t tell me he was sick,” Palmer said.
Palmer’s online dating experiences up to that point had been less than ideal, so she wanted to know who she was dealing with and asked Ramhorst to send her a photo of himself.
“I had no hair. It had fallen out, so I was wearing a beanie,” Ramhorst said. “I took a picture and I sent it and I said, ‘But that’s not how I usually look.’”
He had to then be honest and tell this woman he had just met online that he was battling cancer from a hospital bed and he wanted to see her.
Palmer was a little hesitant at first, but Ramhorst was blunt: If she couldn’t see him in his current state — on his “deathbed” as he put it — he wasn’t interested.
They had their first date on the fourth floor of Cedars-Sinai hospital.
“It was two days before (his) stem-cell transplant and that’s it,” Palmer said. “Every day since.”
They said there have been a few ups and down since — Ramhorst relapsed two years ago and had to have a bone-marrow transplant before being declared cancer-free again — but life is getting back to normal.
“Just being alive and being in decent health … we take it for granted,” Ramhorst said. “But once you go through it and the people who love you go through it, (you) really have a different appreciation of life.”
Between making announcements, answering questions from her staff and sending volunteers on ice runs, event lead Betty Noujaim said close to 1,000 people were expected to attend the fundraiser, with the goal of raising $70,000 for the American Cancer Society.
“We have more people this year than last year, definitely,” Noujaim said. “We have less teams but more people.”
The fundraiser adopted a Monopoly theme this year, featuring teams walking or running around the track with a few versions of the board game’s figurines, property cards for each team tent and a jail.
Like many involved in the relay, the fight against cancer is personal for Noujaim, too. Her daughter Ida was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2003.
Noujaim said it was difficult to deal with, but things got better after they experienced a Relay for Life event during a visit to Montana.
“It really helped,” she said.
Noujaim found out there was a relay in Glendale, and they’ve been involved every year since 2004.
Ida’s brain tumor has come back three times since 2003, and she is currently awaiting a trial of gene therapy, which is easier on the body, Noujaim said.
“That’s thanks to American Cancer Society,” Noujaim said. “Because they fund the research, we’ve got the research.”
Teams brought in more than $10,000 during the event, which increased the total money raised through the Glendale relay to more than $64,000, according to Taynah Munn, a senior manager for the American Cancer Society.
Munn said the money raised at this and other Relay for Life events goes not only toward funding cancer research, but also to outreach and support services — including programs for cancer patients in need of rides to treatment, lodging for patients and caregivers and online resources for patients and families.
The annual luminaria ceremony, where attendees light candles — or, in the case of this year, glow sticks — was held in the evening in honor of loved ones who either lost their battle with cancer or are currently fighting the disease.
Activities extended throughout the night and into Sunday morning, including screenings of the movies “Hocus Pocus” and “Big Hero 6,” dance lessons and karaoke.
Acapulco provided lunch to attendees, with the Glendale Fire Department providing a pancake breakfast the following morning.
Glendale’s relay was one of more than 120 in Los Angeles County and 5,000 across the United States.
This was the first Glendale Relay for Life for Kathy Kensinger, who is fighting cancer and said the support she received through the event was the most important thing to her.
“This tells me the city loves me,” she said.
The Glendale resident was diagnosed with uterine cancer 2013, then breast cancer the following year.
Kensinger is still in the fight, but she’s not letting it slow her down. She quit smoking two years ago and is saving up for a cruise through the Panama Canal.
“It’s been a complete shift in life,” she said.
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Ryan Fonseca, ryan.fonseca@latimes.com
Twitter: @RyFons